Businessweek Archives

More statistics

I’m travelling today to the “2008 World Congress on National Accounts and Economic Performance Measure for Nations.” (on the train down to Washington DC as I write this). Basically a full week conference on how to make sure that the economic statistics are measuring exactly what we want them to be measuring, given the changes in the world economy.

I hadn’t planned on going, but the program looked so appetizing that I changed my schedule. If you want to see the program, you can find it here

Frankly, I consider this stuff to be incredibly significant. When it comes to the economy, we depend on the statistics to tell us what is happening. If the statistics aren’t right, we run the risk of making bad decisions, both personally and in terms of policy.

Update: I was strong-armed into giving a short talk at lunchtime about the importance of economic statistics from the perspective of a journalist. Fun.